The Grand Opening

I couldn't be more thrilled at the prospect of returning to Bloggerdom. So to celebrate I've prepared an entire week's worth of content to get myself off on the right foot. I'll explain.

As much as I love hockey, I love television more. I plan on making a career out of it. But I came a little late to the game. It's not that I didn't watch TV when I was a kid, it's just I didn't really develop an appreciation for it until my junior year of high school. In fact, I credit an old friend with creating that first spark. Her name was Emily and I haven't heard from her since graduation.

The year was 2000. It was the winter break. Now, as kids, my brothers and I were never allowed to have television sets in our bedrooms. And when did watch TV in the living room, it was very restricted. My mother was a little overprotective when it came to the boob tube. But I was older now and there was an old 13-inch collecting dust in the dining room. I thought it might make a nice addition to the empty space on top of the dresser in my bedroom.

I got little resistance, only that I promise it wouldn't interfere with homework and such. The first show I watched, oddly enough, was Ally McBeal. I lived in Tampa and the FOX affiliate got the best reception on my rabbit ears (there was no cable hookup in my bedroom). I always heard it was funny and my mom used to watch it every so often.

I was hooked. It cracked me up. And there was a new story every week. Then I started watching an hour earlier on Monday nights when I found Boston Public, and so began my appreciation for David E. Kelley's quirky writing style. So this was television.

A year later, Emily told me about The West Wing and befoe you could say "Aaron Sorkin," I had a new favorite show. I didn't want to miss a single episode (despite having already missed two seasons). In 2001, a crop of new shows was announed and I was absolutely fascinated. The first shows I followed from their premieres were 24 and Alias.

Through high school, I focused on newspaper and magazine production and design as much potential career track. But now things were changing. I wanted to get into television. Well, I have sinced finished graduated from the University of South Florida with a degree in TV production and am in the process of finding that elusive first job.

Now that you have a little background. Let me explain my opening week festivities. Every year in the middle of May, the broadcast networks hold giant day-long presentations for members of the advertising industry. The nets unveil their fall television schedules and explain why those ad dollars should get stuffed into their pockets. For those of us who love TV, it's the week when we learn which pilots will be made into series and which of our favorite shows will see another season and which ones won't. It sends chills up my spine.

They're called the upfronts. Presentations of massive proportions. And I, as much as anybody, can't wait to see what will be offered in the new season. So rather than waiting, I've taken it upon myself to put together a wishlist of sorts. From Monday through Thursday, I'm going to post my hopes and predictions for the new fall schedules of NBC, ABC, CBS and FOX (in that order). And exactly five weeks from those dates, the networks will unveil their actual schedules. At which point I'll get to see how close I was to guessing it right. The odds are not in my favor.

So I've been working on them all weekend and I'll be proud to post them publicly. Here's the schedule for the week.

• Monday, April 9 : NBC (actual: Monday, May 14)


• Tuesday, April 10 : ABC (actual: Tuesday, May 15)


• Wednesday, April 11 : CBS (actual: Wednesday, May 16)


• Thursday, April 12 : FOX (actual: Thursday, May 17)

When all the official schedules are released in May, I'll tally up the score and give a review of how I fared. Now don't go thinking I put a lot of effort and time into this. It's just my opinion and a rather healthy dose of wishful thinking.

You might notice that I've chosen not to cover The CW or MyNetworkTV. But I don't watch either of those networks so while I could say the reason is that I'm not well-versed in their programming, the fact is I just don't care enough.

That's all from me for now. Check back tomorrow afternoon for my NBC fall predictions.